Vet on Call: Just what is in a vet’s kit?

Dr Mwikali of Gardenvet stocks a field drug kit. A doctor should always carry a minimum variety of drugs and other materials that enables him or her to treat almost all types of cases commonly encountered in the field. PHOTO | JOSEPH MUGACHIA | NMG

What you need to know:

  • In reality, a farmer may have a much longer farming experience than a doctor depending on his/her age, the time he/she started farming and the age and experience of the doctor.
  • When the doctor arrives on the farm, her first task is to get the case history from the farmer.
  • Our veterinary clinic has a policy that a doctor should always carry a minimum variety of drugs and other materials that enables him or her to treat almost all types of cases commonly encountered in the field.
  • These animals in most cases are not given drugs by mouth because they digest the drugs in the rumen and render them useless.

Many times in the course of my veterinary work, I have to explain my actions. Sometimes a farmer will even question the rationale of my treatment.

This does not bother me at all. In fact when farmers give me their views, I appreciate because then I know they have been keenly observing what the different service providers who visit their farms do and the outcomes of their treatments or advice.

In reality, a farmer may have a much longer farming experience than a doctor depending on his/her age, the time he/she started farming and the age and experience of the doctor.

The farmer will have seen many drugs used on the farm and observed the effects on treated animals but will not know when drugs become useless or when newer and more effective drugs break into the market.

When training students, I always impress on them the need to listen more and talk less when attending to cases. A doctor’s diagnostic work is investigative with lots of questions, observations, research and consultation.

It is the farmer who always makes the first contact with the doctor through a phone call, a face to face case report or a meeting with a farm worker.

Second, when the doctor arrives on the farm, her first task is to get the case history from the farmer. Receiving the case report and taking the history of the case are two critical steps in diagnosing the problem and, therefore, in determining the treatment the doctor should give.

While executing the two steps, the doctor must listen and ask questions without giving any opinion.

I recall one case, two weeks ago, when one of the veterinary students attached to our practice asked me why I kept listening to a farmer who was prescribing a drug for his cow as he gave me the case history.

“Well, at the end of it all, it is your role as the doctor to explain why the suggested drug is inappropriate for the case,” I told the student.

It is not unusual for farmers to suggest the doctor uses one medicine or the other. I, however, advise farmers to always let the doctor make his/her diagnosis and give the treatment plan that he/she should fully explain.

I carry a drug kit that is much bigger than what most veterinary doctors use when attending farm cases. The kit weighs about 15kg when fully stocked and about 4.5kg when the box is empty.

ACCURATELY PREDICT

Many farmers ask me why my drug kit is big while they have seen other service providers go to attend cases on their farms with only a few drugs.

One farmer last week laughed when I told her we would have to go buy some drug I wanted to use on her goats while she could see I had many drugs in my kit. “I even see you have the two medicines that I understand cure all diseases,” she concluded pointing to the two bottles of Alamycin L/A and Penstrep.

I explained none of the two preparations were appropriate for the disease affecting her goats. The encounter with this farmer and the questions I get from other farmers prompted me to share the full arsenal of my drug kit with you.

Hopefully, this will help debunk the belief in a “cure all” medicine that is one of the drivers of fraud in animal health service delivery.

Our veterinary clinic has a policy that a doctor should always carry a minimum variety of drugs and other materials that enables him or her to treat almost all types of cases commonly encountered in the field.

This ensures high efficiency in time management for the clinic and the farmer and timely treatment of sick animals.

The beauty of this policy is that in any one geographical area, one will generally find a defined set of diseases depending on the animals farmed, the farming system that is used and the environment.

Having worked for the last 30 years in Nairobi and its environs, we have been able to fairly accurately predict the range of our drug needs.

In addition to medicines, the kit contains a category of items called sanitary materials. These include surgeon’s gloves, rectal examination gloves, infection prevention chemicals called antiseptics and disinfectants such as surgical spirit, iodine and copper sulphate.

There are also the drug delivery instruments such as syringes, needles and mouth tubes. The kit also contains surgical blades, blood sample collection tubes and glass slides.

Our drug kit is a partitioned into four sections. The first on top is a tray that carries the syringes, needles, drugs in tablet form, blood sample collection tubes and other light non-medical items.

BACTERIAL DISEASES

The second compartment carries the sanitary materials in individual packages, chemicals for treating external parasites and dewormers.

The third compartment carries all the injectable drugs. These are the most commonly used drugs in farm animals because majority of the animals are ruminants such as cattle, sheep and goats.

These animals in most cases are not given drugs by mouth because they digest the drugs in the rumen and render them useless.

The full arsenal of the medicines in our drug kit is varied. Just as in humans, animals are affected by a variety of disease-causing organisms as well as a variety of non-infectious diseases.

While some of the diseases may be treated with the same medicine, most of the diseases require specific treatment.

There are therefore drugs to treat diseases caused by bacteria. Such medicines are classified into groups depending on the bacterial diseases they are able to cure.

There are also medicines to cure diseases caused by blood parasites found in the blood cells or living freely in the blood such as east coast fever, red water, gull sickness and sleeping sickness.

The compartment also contains drugs for treating nutritional diseases such as milk fever and vitamin deficiencies.

Need I say more regarding the size of my drug kit and the arsenal of the tools of trade it contains? I advise farmers to be wary of any animal health service provider who constantly uses one or two drugs to treat all diseases.

They should also get very concerned with anyone who claims to have a one “cure all” medicine because it simply does not exist.